›› “Is it photography? Is it art? Is it easy? Is it any good? And most often: Is it legal?” Eugene Reznik at Techonomy considers if “Curating [Is] as Good as Photographing?” citing the social media buzz surrounding Doug Rickard’s A New American Picture—which has just been nominated for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2013—as a taste of ongoing popular debate surrounding the merits of appropriation as art.

›› Lucas Kavner at the Huffington Post considers Instagram as “photography’s anti-christ, Savior, or something in-between,” while James Estrin’s Lens blog post earlier this month blasted “social photography” for perpetuating the mainstream celebration of the commonplace image. “As far as I can see — admittedly from ground level — there are two possible effects on “serious” photography,” said Estrin in his Sept. 7 opinion piece. Our money is on the former, but read the argument and draw your own conclusions.